Hero On E-Book: What would you like to see?

[Secret Master]

Hello Everybody:

 

Darren has given me permission to try to convert some Hero books into the .azn format that the Amazon Kindle Reader uses. Now, I'm not much of a layout guy, but from what I'm seeing so far it will be extremely difficult to create a book in .azn that is going to be anywhere near Andy's standards. Their DTP (Digital Text Platform) turns PDF's into hash, and their prefered file for upload into the platform is HTML.

 

Actually, I'm not certain that it can be done an anything other than plain text with a few pictures here and there. I just downloaded SeaMonkey, but I've never worked with HTML before. Do any of you know if I can actually make something that looks neat, or will it be strictly no frills?

 

For those of you like like to use non-PDF e-books (hint: if you don't like them, no need to comment), what would you like a potential Hero product in .azn, .mobi, or BBeB to look like anyway? Fancy, text only, or something in between? I like to read books in .mobi, but they're just a bookcover followed by text: neat, cross-platform text, but just text none the less. I don't care about graphics or quality of layout in a non-PDF ebook, but maybe that's just me.

 

-Jason Walters

[SAVeira]

Re: Hero On E-Book: What would you like to see?

 

I have been using Microsoft Reader for years to read books on my iPAQ. I think that general text only work best of the e-books on a handheld, but that could be just me.

[Akiva]

Re: Hero On E-Book: What would you like to see?

 

Unfortunately, I'm the type of guy who's enjoyment of a book lives and dies in its presentation. There are certain typefaces I can't tolerate and certain paperback bindings that make me put a book right back on the shelf. Thus, when it comes to any kind of electronic book, be it PDF or otherwise, it needs to look proper and, in the case of HERO books, it needs to look exactly like the printed copy. I think that books in any other layout would ruin page references which is also incredibly important.

 

So, yeah, although I do have interest in the Kindle (and I'm highly amused at their file extension), unless it looks like the books themselves, I won't be interested in any non-PDF versions of them.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Hero On E-Book: What would you like to see?

 

With HTML, assuming the AZN format allowed for CSS you could probably do some fairly decent layout. It won't be as robust or fancy as what Andy does with In Design, but it'll be passablel for an Ebook.

 

It would be possible to create decent ebook formats of the Hero Books, with only a minor amount of difficulty I'd imagine.

 

I haven't looked into it, is there a document with the technical specs of what Amazon wants/can accept for books in their reader?

[Secret Master]

Re: Hero On E-Book: What would you like to see?

 

Yes. Amazon provides a document called the Amazon DTP Quickstart Guide that is quite helpful, but doesn't get my past the problem that their .azn file translater turns .pdf files into hash. (Unfortunately!)

 

Ok, I see that most of you want a file that looks as good or nearly as good as a standard Hero publication. Since I don't think that I have the skills to produce that from scratch, any suggestions for some software that will translate .pdf files accurately or semi-accurately into HTML? Then I can upload them into the DPT, have them turned into .azn files, then have THAT file turned back into HTML for corrections.

 

If I can find something that does that I think I can produce a reasonable looking product with page numbers close to those of those of the original book.

 

-Jason

[Fitz]

Re: Hero On E-Book: What would you like to see?

 

A physical book and an on-screen document have fundamentally different layout requirements; all too often, an e-book reproduction of a physical book is just a layout dump to pdf (or whatever) without any thought taken for the needs of the viewing medium.

 

I'm not familiar with the Kindle (or any of the other readers, for that matter), but I am intimately familiar with html and css and layout for on-screen viewing (help files, website design, pdf document production etc.) and I guess I have a bit of a bee in my bonnet about this.

 

Depending on the destination, you're probably going to have to reorganise the page breaks. As far as possible, arrange your layout so that each page view contains all (and only) text relevant to that specific subject -- remember, you don't have to worry about paying for paper, so there's no point in cramming everything together. Multi-column text probably isn't appropriate. Illustrations are easy enough to incorporate, but you need to ask if they actually add anything to the information you're trying to display. If you can use hyperlinking in the end document, you can use it to good effect to take the viewer to example callouts, tables etc. which means you may not need to display them directly within the section - a linked thumbnail may be sufficient.

 

Way back in the distant past, I recreated the 4th Edition rules as html documents for my own convenience, and the thing that made the exercise worth while was the massive amount of interlinking I could indulge in to make navigating to the precise information I needed as easy as possible.

 

In short, DON'T just try to reproduce the physical book. You're working in a different medium, with different strengths and weaknesses. Work with them, and don't try to shoehorn it into an ill fit.

[Secret Master]

Re: Hero On E-Book: What would you like to see?

 

Thank you Fitz - that seems like very reasonable advice and is in keeping with what I was thinking of doing. I was considering removing almost all of the artwork except for the cover, maps, and character pictures in any case. The thumbnail link is an excellent suggestion as well.

 

What do you think of the SeaMonkey as an HTML editor?

 

-Jason

[Fitz]

Re: Hero On E-Book: What would you like to see?

 

What do you think of the SeaMonkey as an HTML editor?

 

I've never used it, I still do all my coding the old-fashioned way (I use Homesite 4.5). I've toyed with Dreamweaver, but I found I wasn't getting any more productive using a wysiwyg design app than I was just coding it straight so I went back to Homesite.

 

You said you hadn't done much with html before, so there may be a few things you might want to take into account.

 

First, you can't rely on your audience having specific fonts installed, so there's very little point in specifying them except in generic terms - i.e. serif or sans-serif. Unlike pdf, there's no reliable way to pack font files with html documents, so if you want to use fancy fonts for headings and what-not, you'll have to present them as image files rather than text, with a corresponding increase in file size.

 

Second, images should be resized to pixel dimensions; resolution is irrelevant. For example, you'd size an image to 300x200px, not 3"x2".

 

As far as possible, use generic html tags, and rely on an associated css style sheet for formatting. It's more graceful, as well as cutting down on file size because you don't have to put formatting code in every single tag.

 

There's a bunch of other stuff as well, but It seems to me that for the job you're doing you shouldn't need to worry too much about the more abstruse aspects of html and css. Good luck with it; if you need advice I'm happy to help.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Hero On E-Book: What would you like to see?

 

Yes. Amazon provides a document called the Amazon DTP Quickstart Guide that is quite helpful, but doesn't get my past the problem that their .azn file translater turns .pdf files into hash. (Unfortunately!)

 

Ok, I see that most of you want a file that looks as good or nearly as good as a standard Hero publication. Since I don't think that I have the skills to produce that from scratch, any suggestions for some software that will translate .pdf files accurately or semi-accurately into HTML? Then I can upload them into the DPT, have them turned into .azn files, then have THAT file turned back into HTML for corrections.

 

If I can find something that does that I think I can produce a reasonable looking product with page numbers close to those of those of the original book.

 

-Jason

 

You guys use Adobe In Design CS3 for layout. Depending on what package you bought of CS3 it may have Adobe Dreamweaver, I suggest using that program. In Design can export to an XML format that Dreamweaver can read (I'm pretty sure... I've not actually tried that yet) and you can then use to create something AZN should be (more or less) happy with without needing to layout the book from scratch.

[Secret Master]

Re: Hero On E-Book: What would you like to see?

 

Fitz- Thank you for the very educational advice.

 

Ghost Angel - Yes, I will try that before I redo everything in HTML

 

-Jason